Vice Presidents Try to Escape Shadow of President ; Only 4 Have Landed Top Job Immediately

It's been called the most powerful job nobody wants... The problem with the second-highest office in the land, as Al Gore knows only too well, is that it presents certain difficulties in running for the top job. Historians and political experts partly attribute Gore's early problems in the polls to the fact that he has been vice president for the past 8 years. "If you look at what makes a good vice president, their job is to be a loyal foot soldier and keep their own career in check while defering to the decisions of the president," said Philip Klinkner, a professor of government at New York's Hamilton College. "They will seem a rather pale shadow of the president. That is part of the job."